Opening boxes we've stored in our attics

Received wisdom, like stereotypes, rarely gets unboxed and examined closely.

I think most people, people whose lives are consumed with the task of living day to day, have a mental attic stacked with sealed boxes in which are packed ideas and points of view acquired long ago that determine how they think the world is. Lessons learned, things considered, conclusions made, and stuffed into a crate. No need to reexamine the contents. Move on. Life is made a little easier that way. Lord knows there's too much to think and worry about as it is without going back and reconsidering old notions. Besides, there's a reason those boxes gather dust in the attic: we think that what's in them is irrelevant to our lives today. Old news in forward-pressing lives. Those boxes contain the raw material from which we've fashioned the tools we use to deal with the world. No sense in opening them up and reinventing a tool that works perfectly fine.

For many who were schooled in the US, there's a box labeled "To Kill a Mockingbird" in that attic. That box probably holds both the text of the novel and vivid images from the movie version. There's the wrongly accused Tom Robinson, the innocent Jem and Scout, the vile Ewells, the noble Atticus, and of course disturbed but golden-hearted Boo. Taped up and stacked away, the contents of that box became the kaleidoscope through which many of us understood the South and Southerners of that era. I have a box like that in my own attic.

The recent publication of Harper Lee's 'prequel' "Go Set a Watchman" and the kerfuffle surrounding it, especially the revelations about Atticus Finch, made me pull down the ladder, climb into my attic, and rummage among the boxes there. I wanted to make a connection between the Finch of Mockingbird and the Finch of Watchman. But I found that I was ill equipped to analyze the contents. One of the many lacunae in my knowledge of history covers the social history of the post Civil War south. Fortunately, there is Michael Lind.  

It's tough to have stereotypes and prejudices shattered. Difficult to learn that your heroes are fake. But the view through my mental lenses is a little clearer now. I think I'll unpack a few more boxes from the attic.